HELPLESS VICTIM: Shae Hammond, who suffered a violent death in 1997. Her nanny Elizabeth Healy was subsequently convicted of murder.

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It was a case that rocked the country - a Christchurch nanny who passed police and reference checks only to murder a toddler in her care.

Now, 15 years after Liz Healy was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 17-month-old Shae Hammond, she may be about to walk free - but the toddler's mother is making a last-ditch plea to keep her child's killer behind bars.

Healy will go before the Parole Board this week to make yet another bid for freedom - her third in nine months.

Shae's mother, Andrea Keats, says Healy must admit her guilt before she is considered for release, and the ongoing hearings brought "everything to the surface".

Healy has maintained her innocence. She never told police what happened that night in January 1997 - only that she had been drinking heavily and found Shae unresponsive in a cot the following morning, the back of her head bashed in.

Shae died in Christchurch Hospital from a severely fractured skull.

The Crown said Shae's injuries could not have been accidental.

The force it took to crack her skull was equivalent to dropping a child headfirst on to concrete from three metres up. Keats fears Healy could harm other children, or worse, kill again.

"Knowing that she could walk free and hurt her [future] grandchildren . . . who's to say she's not going to flip again? A leopard doesn't change its spots."

Healy was denied parole in May last year because she wanted to be released into Christchurch. Keats and her family had objected to her living in the same city.

In its decision, the board also said it "cannot be satisfied" Healy did not present a risk to the safety of the community.

In July, Healy applied for an early hearing, which went ahead in November.

She had since found an alternative release address, understood by Keats to be in the lower North Island, a job, accommodation and had access to a support network.

The board recommended a release and safety plan be drawn up and presented at this week's hearing, but "with no promises as to the outcome".

Keats, now 45, said she felt compelled to speak out as it looked more likely than ever that Healy would be granted parole.